Our Picks This Month

The leaves are turning, the light is changing...it must be fall! This month, we're harvesting the latecomers in our summer gardens and prepping our fall-and-winter gardens. In the space between seasons, we're obsessed with flashy flowers and foliage that give us the color we're craving right now.

Shrubs & Color:

Decorate your garden for fall with colorful plants that do well during hot days and cooling nights. Get ready: your yard is about to be the envy of the neighborhood!

Salvia

It's Salvia season, and we're hosting a promotion in honor of this wonderful plant! Stop by the nursery to check out our jaw-dropping selection of Salvias, and snag one (or two, or six) at a seasonally low price!

'Nectar Blue' - Improved, earlier blooming version of 'Black and Blue'; great option for the middle to back of borders; deer resistant and heavy blooming until frost.

'Love N Wishes' - Deep purple flowers cover tough plants from early spring to frost; forms a ball of color with no pruning or deadheading.

Chrysanthemum

Few flowers herald the arrival of autumn as exuberantly as Chrysanthemums. Our fall Mums selection is officially here, so come take your pick of sizes, shapes, and colors before they're gone!

Pansy

Nothing cheers up the fall garden like a bed of bi-colored pansies. Their compact size and incredible color variety makes this the perfect plant for brightening up containers and window boxes as well!

'Frizzle Sizzle' - A rainbow of frilly blooms on compact plants with a hint of pansy scent; incredible flowering performance

'Jewels N Jazz' - A hybrid series more tolerant of summer heat and winter cold than average pansy types; combines nicely with spring-flowering bulbs

Edibles:

The first cool season veggies are arriving! Here are a few that do well in the period between summer and fall.

Pak Choi

This quick-growing green is the first thing you'll harvest from your fall garden, and is mild and delicious to boot. The perfect plant to kick off the season!

'Toy Choy' - the perfect single-serving vegetable, with smooth, dark green leaves and glistening crisp white stalks; reaches 5" tall - just the right size to set on your plate!

Lettuce

Say goodbye to wilted supermarket salad mixes! During cooler months, the sky is the limit when it comes to growing your own lettuce. With a variety to suit every palate, stop by and pick your favorites.

'Salanova' - Single heads of uniformly-sized leaves harvestable with one simple cut; better flavor and texture, and double the shelf life of traditional baby-leaf lettuce.

Tarragon

Often overlooked by home cooks, Tarragon is an herb worth adding to your kitchen garden! Its subtle flavor complements delicate meats like white fish and chicken, and is a key flavor in French cuisine.

'French' - Grows to 36 inches tall, this dark green tarragon has a wonderful flavor suggesting anise or mint.

PROJECT: Start Your Seeds!

Beginning this month, sow the seeds of your fall and winter garden - literally! The weather may still be hot, but now is the time to start seeds for cool-weather plants. All you need are a few basic supplies, a plan of action, and a DIY spirit.

Let us help you - and your seeds - get growing!

SUPPLIES

Seed starting pots or cell tray with humidity dome
Seed starting mix
Spray bottle or squirt bottle filled with water
Seaweed extract or Seed Starter Fertilizer
Labels
Seeds!

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Select your seeds.

Some seeds are best started directly in the garden bed (we're looking at you, root vegetables), but many other plants benefit from a good pre-start. Some cool-weather veggies that get their best start in a tray include Broccoli, Cauliflower, Kale, Cabbage, Mustard, Chard, and Collards.

2. Count back the days.

Give your plants time to mature before the first frost. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, our first frost date this year is around December 20. Check your seed packet to determine how many days your plants need to reach maturity, then count back from December 20. The date you land on is approximately when your starts should go in the ground. Remember: plants take longer to mature when weather is cool, so give yours a little extra time.

3. Choose the right container.

While you can start seeds in almost any type of container (as long as it's 2-3" deep and has some drainage holes), nothing beats the ease and convenience of trays made especially for seed starting. We carry both cell tray 'greenhouses" and compostable starter pots. Whichever option you choose, make sure you have a tray to set them in (you'll be bottom-watering your seedlings to encourage healthy downward root growth).

4. Prepare the potting soil.

Use potting soil that's made for growing seedlings, not soil from your garden or used potting soil from your houseplants. A fresh, sterile mix ensures healthy, disease-free seedlings. Before filling your containers, use a bucket or tub to moisten the planting mix. Aim for moist but not sopping wet; crumbly, not gloppy. Fill the containers and pack the soil firmly to eliminate gaps.

5. Get planting!

Check your seed packet to see how deeply to plant your seeds. Some smaller seeds can be sprinkled right on the soil surface, whereas larger seeds need to be buried. For insurance, plant two seeds per cell (or pot). If both germinate, snip one and let the other grow. It's helpful to make a couple of divots in each pot to accommodate the seeds. After you've dropped a seed in each divot, you can go back and cover the seeds.

CARE

Water

Mist the newly planted seeds with a spray bottle, then cover the pots with the plastic dome that fits over the seed-starting tray (if you don't have a system with a dome, use plastic wrap). This helps keep the seeds moist before they germinate. When you see the first signs of green, remove the cover for the remainder of the starting period.

As the seedlings grow, use the spray bottle to keep the soil moist but not soggy. Let the soil dry slightly between waterings. Set up a fan to ensure good air movement and prevent disease.

Food

Seed starting mixes usually contain few nutrients, so you'll need to feed the seedlings a few weeks after they germinate. Continue to feed them at the rate recommended on the fertilizer package until transplanting into your garden.

Light

Seedlings need a lot of light and will complain if they don't get it, growing leggy and weak. With the weather still warm as of this writing, you could start your seeds outdoors if you wanted to. Choose a sunny location that doesn't get too hot. If you prefer to grow in an inside window, choose a south-facing exposure. Rotate the pots regularly to keep plants from leaning into the light.

If grow lights are your plan, adjust them so they're just a few inches above the tops of the seedlings. Set the lights on a timer for 15 hours a day. Keep in mind that seedlings need darkness, too, so they can rest. As the seedlings grow taller, raise the lights.

MORE TIPS:

Move outdoors gradually

If you've started your seedlings indoors, it's not a good idea to move your seedlings directly from the protected environment of your home into the garden. You've been babying them for weeks, so they need a gradual transition to the great outdoors. This process is called hardening off.

About a week before you plan to set the seedlings into the garden, place them in a protected spot outdoors (partly shaded, out of the wind) for a few hours, bringing them in at night. Gradually, over the course of a week or 10 days, expose them to more and more sunshine and wind. This treatment will be enough to adequately prepare them for their new life in your garden!

Cover Crops - Tips from Botanical Interests

The following tips are from one of our seed vendors, Botanical Interests. Happy reading!

Cover crops are very simple to grow and incredibly beneficial to your soil's health. Any size garden can benefit from soil-enriching cover crops and it just takes a few steps to take advantage of this centuries-old, organic practice.

• Sow fall cover crops about 6 weeks ahead of your first average late-summer/fall frost date.
• Shear plants if your cover crop begins to set seed before a killing frost or you don't have frost in your area. This will prevent reseeding and encourage new growth, which means more nutrients and organic material.
• Let cover crop stand once frost kills the plants. This helps to feed soil organisms, prevent erosion, and preserve soil moisture.
• Work cover crop material into your soil a month or more before sowing to give it time to break down. In frost-free areas, incorporate the cover crops into the soil for winter or later winter planting.

Product We Love: AgroThrive Organic Bio-Fertilizer

There's more to healthy soil than compost! Fertile garden soil is a bustling ecosystem made of organic material, water, air, earthworms and bacteria, minerals, fungi, and microbes: quite literally a world beneath your feet.

Microbes do the *dirty* work of breaking down the organic and inorganic material that become the foundation of the soil system. Most fertilizers require a "waiting period" between when you apply the fertilizer to your garden, and when your garden microbes break it down into nutrients your plants can use.

By contrast, AgroThrive is food your plants and soil microbes can use now. Made of pre-digested industrial food waste, AgroThrive is to other fertilizers what yogurt is to whole milk. This highly digested (mineralized) liquid fertilizer gives garden microbes a solid head-start.

The result is soil that is microbially and enzymatically diverse, leading to healthier and more nutritious plants with better foliage, less stress, better disease-resistance, and higher yields.

As an additional bonus, AgroThrive also puts to use material that would otherwise end up in a landfill. This prevents the production of over 30 million cubic feet of methane (a potent greenhouse gas) each year.

If you've been looking for a fertilizer that is great for soil, great for plants, and great for the environment, AgroThrive checks all the boxes. Stop by the nursery to pick up a bottle today, and do your garden - and the planet - a favor!

Order Your Bareroot Orchard Now!

We are now taking special orders for bareroot fruit trees, arriving in spring. Stop by the nursery for a Special Order Fruit Tree (SOFT) order packet, and make sure you get the backyard orchard you've always wanted! Order cutoff date is October 27th.

What A Bright Time, It's The Right Time To Order Your Xmas Tree

Starting this month, pre-order your best Christmas tree ever from Yamagami's Garden Center!

Pre-order by mid November, and we'll give you 10% off your tree. Noble and Douglas firs will both be available, so you can deck your halls in style!

Get Your Pumpkin On

Pumpkins are coming! Our pumpkin patch will be all set up in time for our September sale. Take a page out of Charlie Brown's book and visit us to look for your very own Great Pumpkin - we're positive ours will be the sincerest patch in town!

Featured Recipe
Easy End-Of-Summer Ratatouille

Say goodbye to summer with this stunning, simple dish that uses the last of your summer garden's bounty! The end of the season has never tasted so good...

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

2 onions, peeled and thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
1 eggplant, thinly sliced
1 zucchini, thinly sliced
2 green peppers, sliced or chopped
8 small tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 sprigs fresh rosemary or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
3 sprigs fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Equipment
Ovenproof dish

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Combine first eight ingredients in ovenproof dish. (Keep herb sprigs intact.)

3. Drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper.

4. Cover with foil and bake 45 minutes.

5. Remove the foil and bake for another 30-45 minutes until deep golden brown.

6. Remove herb sprigs.

DO AHEAD: Will keep for 3-4 days refrigerated; this is super delicious cold and improves with a little time.

Recipe by Clothilde Dusoulier from Adventures in A Parisian Kitchen

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